Monday, January 26, 2009

Cold Case - Recap & Review - The Brush Man

Cold CaseThe Brush Man

Original Air Date: Jan 25, 2009

Amanda - TwoCents Revieweramanda@thetwocentscorp.com

When confronted with injustice, do you intervene, or do you walk away? This week’s “Cold Case” deals with this question by illustrating the 1967 murder of a man with a good heart who got a bit too involved. We also got to see Lil get some closure regarding her mother’s death…and it looks like things are about to get interesting in the Jeffries household.

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When confronted with injustice, do you intervene, or do you walk away? This week’s “Cold Case” deals with this question by illustrating the 1967 murder of a man with a good heart who got a bit too involved. We also got to see Lil get some closure regarding her mother’s death…and it looks like things are about to get interesting in the Jeffries household.

This week’s victim is Roy Dunn, a traveling brush salesman, found dead in a recently-drained pond. From an interview with the salesman who took over his route, we learn that Roy kept his finger on the pulse of the neighborhood, flirting with the area housewives, playing ball with the neighbor kids, but remaining all business. The salesman tells of Roy frequently giving away product samples to the women in the neighborhood, including an upholstery brush to an extremely timid woman, Diane, who’s come over for coffee at the home of her flirtatious friend, Joanie.

In interviewing Joanie, Lilly and Scotty learn that Roy had a confrontation with a reclusive neighbor, “Abnormal Norm,” over a baseball that landed in Norm’s yard. Our fearless detectives head over for a chat with Norm, who refuses to answer the door, buying him a trip downtown and giving the detectives the right to search his house, where they find Roy’s appointment book. The book contains notes on orders, payment information, and has an envelope containing $100, addressed to a woman named Alice. Norm, however, protests his innocence, insisting that he found the book while at the pond feeding the ducks. In a flashback, he recalls seeing Diane’s husband, Glenn, giving back the items she bought from Roy, and ordering Roy to stay away from them.

Scotty and Lilly head over for a chat with Glenn and Diane, who seem the happy couple, but Lilly senses something strange about Diane, particularly when she escapes to the kitchen the minute the detectives ask about their estranged son, Kevin. Glenn recalls seeing Kevin and Roy playing ball in the park, Roy mentioning that he used to play baseball all the time just to get out of the house, and an enraged Glenn threatens Roy with a call to the police if he doesn’t stay away from Kevin. Glenn also mentions seeing Roy lurking around another neighbor woman’s house.

This, folks, is where the case gets interesting. It turns out Roy’s got a manslaughter conviction for killing Jim Mills in a bar fight…and the man’s widow, Alice, lives in that same Philly neighborhood. This, I think, warrants a chat with Alice, and the detectives agree. Alice explains to Lilly and Scotty that her husband beat her, Roy took exception, the two fought, and Roy killed Jim. Upon his release from prison, Roy came to Philadelphia to find Alice and apologize, saying, in a poignant moment, that he wished he were the type who could just walk away. Think perhaps Roy repeated his pattern, perhaps with Diane?

Lilly certainly thinks so, because she confronts Diane at the grocery store. After a brief argument, Diane relents and tells Lilly the reason for their falling-out with Kevin: one day, she was upset about Glenn and how he kept secrets from her, and Roy showed up to provide a shoulder to cry on, as well as encouragement for her to leave Glenn. Although this could easily have turned tawdry, it’s clear that Roy cared only for Diane’s well-being. Unfortunately for all parties involved, Kevin saw them embrace anyway. Oh, snap.

Back at Headquarters, Vera and Lilly interview Kevin, who says he received a beating from his father after this incident, but it had nothing to do with Diane and Roy: it had to do with Kevin catching Glenn at the park…with another man. Whoa. Lilly and Scotty confront Glenn with this information, and he admits that Roy came to his workshop, told him everything, and urged him to leave Kevin and Diane alone. They fought, and Glenn stabbed Roy to death to keep his secret.

This was one of the better cases all season, and I found Roy particularly intriguing. From the brief snippet of conversation we heard with Kevin, it seemed that Roy had a difficult childhood himself, and became a self-appointed crusader to rescue others from the same fate. He’s the sort of person whose heart was always in the right place, but whose actions weren’t always the smartest. Kinda reminds me of one of our detectives…*coughSCOTTYcough*.

Speaking of the detectives, they had some nice moments this week. The always entertaining Vera-Toni relationship is, sadly, apparently over, resulting in Vera losing his apartment, sleeping on the couch at PPD, and performing his morning grooming ritual in the ladies’ room, as an unsuspecting Lilly learns in one of the more hilarious scenes we’ve had this season. The always-awesome Jeffries takes Vera under his wing and helps him look for an apartment, but when the search proves fruitless, he gives Vera a key to his place. Good times are ahead, I think.

It also seems that better times are ahead for Lilly, who tells her father the truth about her mother’s death. She tells Cooper about her futile efforts to get her mother to stop drinking, and we also learn that she blames herself for her mother’s death. Aw, Lil. Cooper simply says he’s sorry that she had to go through that alone. It seems, however, that Lil finally has some closure, as evidenced by a beautiful moment in the end montage where the two visit Ellen’s grave. This scene was infinitely better than the last one these two had together, and the actors knocked it out of the park.

So that’s my two cents, which, in 1967, probably would have bought you at least part of one of those amazing brushes, although, according to Glenn, they were overpriced. I’d love to hear your thoughts!